Actor Robards Has No Regrets

NEW YORK — Jason Robards never wanted to be an actor. As a young man, he attributed the gradual deterioration in the health of his father, who was also a well-known actor, to the profession.

``I told myself that I didn`t want any part of a profession that did that to a man,`` he recalled, sitting in his dressing room just before the 7 o`clock curtain for Eugene O`Neill`s The Iceman Cometh, currently on Broadway. ``I loved him very much and I hated to see him get hurt, and hurt himself.``

Robards joined the Navy and planned to make it his career, but somehow the lure of the footlights transcended the lure of the sea. ``I ended up doing what I said I never would do,`` he said.

He has no regrets. Given the opportunity to relive his life, he says, he`d do the same thing again. When asked about the highlights of his career, he answered unhesitantly: ``The first time I was in The Iceman Cometh almost 30 years ago, because it gave me my first big chance; Long Day`s Journey, which followed it; playing in Shakespeare`s Henry IV, Part 1 and Winter`s Tale at Stratford in Canada, and working with my father in The Disenchanted on Broadway.``